They may need to: the U.S., South Korea and Japan have strongly condemned the launch, and potential new sanctions over both the launch and the North’s purported hydrogen bomb test just one month ago are now being discussed in the U.N. Security Council.
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PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) – Hours after the rest of the world already knew, North Korea’s state media triumphantly announced in a special news bulletin to the nation Sunday it had successfully launched a satellite into orbit, calling it a major milestone in the nation’s history and the “greatest gift of loyalty” to the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement that although China believes that North Korea should have the right to peaceful utilization of space, “at present this right is restricted by U.N. Security Council resolutions”.
Those resolutions “repeatedly call for North Korea to suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme, to re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching and not to conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology”, he said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier Sunday sharply criticized North Korea and said that the launch violated existing United Nations resolutions on Pyongyang’s use of ballistic missile technology.
There was no immediate external confirmation that the final stage of the satellite-bearing rocket had successfully achieved orbit, although the US Strategic Command said it had tracked “the missile launch into space”.
Steinmeier said Sunday’s emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was an important signal and called on all partners to support firm steps.
The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, meanwhile, said upcoming South Korea-US military exercises, which infuriate Pyongyang every year, would be the largest ever held.
“It is time to move forward on this issue”, said Thomas Vandal, commander of the Eighth US Army based in South Korea.
For North Korea’s propaganda machine, the long-range rocket launch Sunday carved a glorious trail of “fascinating vapor” through the clear blue sky.
The resolution required Pyongyang to comply with all relevant resolutions approved by the Security Council and not to use the ballistic missile technology for any launch.
North Korea originally told the International Maritime Organization and other agencies that it would attempt a satellite launch between February 8 and 25.
The launch will heighten global pressure on China, North Korea’s biggest foreign investor, to do more.
“As North Korea is aware, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to take significant measures against any further launches or nuclear tests”.
South Korea took similar measures after the North’s nuclear test last month.
Kim Jong Un has overseen two of the North’s four nuclear tests and three long-range rocket launches since taking over after the death of his father, dictator Kim Jong Il, in late 2011.
North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The North is thought to have a small arsenal of crude atomic bombs and an impressive array of short- and medium-range missiles.
North Korea has spent decades trying to develop operational nuclear weapons. And Donald Trump said he’d rely on China to “quickly and surgically” handle North Korea.
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It last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending into orbit an object it described as a communications satellite.
